NASA Goes Lunar: Robot Craft, Human Outpost Plans

NASA has begun to plot out its escape route from low Earth orbit, putting itself on a return journey back to the Moon, planting footprints on Mars, and heading off to other targets beyond. In his mid-January space pep rally, President George W. Bush charged the agency with signing up to a new astronautical agenda — part of which called for extended human missions to the Moon as early as 2015. Always keen on responding to a White House directive, NASA has done its bureaucratic best by creating Code T: The Office of Exploration Systems.